A regular at Joe Coffee on Waverly Place, the scruffy actor only orders java on ice.

“Philip Seymour Hoffman has never gotten a hot coffee, ever. Even in the dead of winter,” says Jonathan Rubinstein, owner of the NYC mini-chain.

“He thinks it just tastes better, and doesn’t enjoy the experience of hot coffee,” Rubinstein explains.

It turns out that Hoffman may be onto something. He’s one of the growing number of New Yorkers for whom iced coffee has become a revered daily drink — treated with the excitement once reserved for summer soft serve and the deference once allotted to the highfalutin world of $6 lattes and espresso drinks.

Iced-coffee sales in the New York area increased nearly 17 percent from 2010 to 2011. New Yorkers aren’t just drinking more than ever, they’re also consuming the most cups of iced joe in the country, according to StudyLogic, a market-research company. In the summer of 2011, New Yorkers spent roughly $31 million on iced-coffee beverages — a number expected to jump even higher this year.

“I am lucky enough to travel a lot around the world, and I noticed that no one, including those in Seattle, drink as much iced coffee as we do,” says Tanya Wenman Steel, editor-in-chief of the food Web site Epicurious.

“If you think about it, 10 years ago, before there was a Starbucks on every corner, you got a lot of your iced coffees from Greek diners. They would literally pour half-and-half and coffee over ice,” she says.

But now?

City dwellers are seeking out and gulping down New Orleans chicory-flavored cold brews, Japanese-style iced coffees (which are brewed hot) and iced espressos livened up with chocolate — and there is a growing number of shops catering to aficionados’ newly refined palates.

“For a number of years, people have been very specific and demanding about their hot coffee . . . Shops were offering seven different single-origin coffees. But iced coffee was just iced coffee,” says Rubinstein.

“Truly, I don’t think the first six or seven years [we were open], anyone ever asked us anything about our iced coffee except, ‘Can I have a small or a large?’ and ‘Can you leave room for milk?’ Now they’re like, ‘I only want Bolivian coffee iced,’ ” he says.

Sophie Elgort, a Lower East Side-based photographer, is as meticulous as they come about iced coffee. She likes it cold-brewed from Blue Bottle Coffee (she used to regularly hop the train to visit the beanery’s Brooklyn outpost before it opened in Manhattan), taken with a dash of Splenda, soy milk and a lot of ice.

“Iced coffee is sort of like a dessert, but [during] the day,” Elgort says of her addiction — which is so intense, she’ll don gloves to drink it during a snowstorm.

It’s funny to think that the Joe shops didn’t even brew iced coffee during the winter five years ago.

In fact, it was only about two years ago that Joe started offering the iced concoction year-round.

“Now we will go through several gallons [a day], even in January,” says Rubinstein.

James Freeman, CEO of Blue Bottle Coffee, credits the humid New York weather for the city’s iced-coffee cult.

“Once it’s hot and humid, people drink iced coffee all hours of the day in New York,” he says.

“In San Francisco, it’s more of an afternoon drink.”

Whereas West Coasters won’t imbibe iced coffee on a warm day in October, “in New York, if it’s hot, they want iced coffee, and they don’t care if it’s October or June,” Freeman says.

“We walk everywhere, and it’s a lot hotter and more muggy, [so] it’s a refreshing way to explore the city with a bit of caffeine,” says Craig Turpin, a producer-editor who lives in Washington Heights and spends about $10 a day on his twice-a-day iced-coffee habit.

“For a New York lifestyle, I don’t think it’s too much to spend,” the 34-year-old adds.

“It’s more expensive [than hot coffee], but there are a lot of things that go into our iced coffee,” says Brett Garrett, manager of the Blue Bottle Coffee in Rockefeller Center, which opened in March. “The amount of coffee we use is almost double what we use for a regular cup because we cold-brew everything,” he explains. (The cold-brewing process involves steeping the coffee grounds in room-temperature water for 12-plus hours).

Still, even the most loyal of customers have their breaking point when it comes to pricing.

“Golden Pear [Cafe] in the Hamptons is absurd. I used to go there. Then they raised their prices to $4.50. Forget it,” Elgort says. “That’s like a latte.”

ICED, COLD AND COOL

Iced coffee may have cubes, but the summer-friendly quencher is anything but square nowadays.

The drink: Iced Mocha Red Eye

The place: MUD Coffee, 307 E. Ninth St.

The mix: MUD coffee with Mojo Espresso and a shot of chocolate

The price: $4.25

***

The drink: New Orleans-style iced coffee

The place: Blue Bottle Coffee, various locations

The mix: Cold-brewed with roasted chicory for up to 18 hours, sweetened with simple syrup, then cut with whole milk for a deceptively chocolatey iced-coffee taste

The price: $4

***

The drink: Bolivia Hipolito iced

The place: Joe Coffee, various locations

The mix: Sweet and lively orange and floral notes made via the Japanese iced-coffee method (brewed strong and hot over ice)

* Alec Baldwin’s Starbucks meltdown left him hot under the collar, but he still enjoys an iced coffee.

* In Manhattan, Starbucks is the most popular venue for iced coffee. Outside the city? Dunkin’ Donuts, says StudyLogic.

* New Yorkers’ favorite iced-coffee flavor is hazelnut, followed by French vanilla and cinnamon, according to StudyLogic.

* During last week’s scorcher, MUD’s East Village cafe went through more than 500 gallons of iced coffee. During the summer months, the shop goes through triple the number of straws used at other times of the year.

* The coolest new milky accoutrement? Almond milk, according to MUD.

* New Yorkers drink an average of 300,000 cups of iced coffee per day in the summer, according to StudyLogic.